Toys
by Bad Faery
Summary: After learning who she is, DG starts to remember a few things about her childhood in the O.Z. Glitch is one of them.  DG x Glitch


Author's Note: This is set in some unspecified time after DG realizes who she is, but before her quest is completed. I have a feeling that canon isn't going to agree with my pairing, but I just couldn't help myself.

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DG settled deeper into the pile of leaves that was serving as her bed and closed her eyes. Within moments she was bombarded with images of the O.Z. both real and dream and several that were neither... or both. She relived her capture by Azkadellia's winged creatures, Cain's rescue, Raw's awkward, gentle words. Stubbornly, she kept her eyes closed, willing her mind to leave her in peace. Her body was exhausted but her thoughts granted her no rest.

Still she remembered. She remembered being hurled into the storm by her not-parents, the woman with the violet eyes- her mother- warning her of an oncoming storm, the anger at facing her sister, the joy at Glitch's present.

Wait.

She blinked her eyes open, watching Glitch poke at the fire, the flames illuminating his pale skin in shades of crimson that looked far too much like blood. "You made me toys," she told him without sitting up. It was a memory, it had to be, the image she had of playing with a wooden contraption lined with silver chimes as he smiled down at her. Try as she might, she couldn't remember what it did, but as she concentrated, she remembered others- the metal lizard who walked and stretched as though it were alive, the crystalline wand that would freeze anyone in place with only a touch- for games, he'd told her.

"Toys," he repeated blankly, as though he didn't know what the word meant. Perhaps he didn't. After a moment's consideration, his expression cleared. "Toys! Yes, toys. I made you toys."

"Wonderful toys," she murmured, her lips curving into an unconscious smile as Glitch abandoned his spot by the fire to come sit at her side. Her brow furrowed as other images filtered back, these of fire and fright and oh, please make it stop, Mother, please make it stop- "Terrible toys."

"Did you like them?" he asked, and she came back to herself with a start, looking into his face that seemed oddly young in the moonlight, his voice anxious and eager.

"Very much," she assured him, knowing it was a lie, knowing that although many of them had delighted her, others had terrified her so badly she couldn't bear to be in the same room with them. Somehow, she couldn't bring herself to tell him that, not when she could see the desperation lurking just behind his eyes. "I liked them very much."

He smiled happily at the praise, but there was still something wrong with his expression. "They were yours," he told her, "All for you. Only for you. I didn't make them for her."

There was no need to clarify who he meant, and for a moment, she felt something akin to pity for her sister and guilt at the knowledge that it had been her who was the clear favorite. Had she known? Had it been so obvious even then that even though she was the oldest, she was a poor second to her younger sister? "Did she know?" she found herself asking, not sure what answer she was expecting.

"Who?" he asked simply, and the moment passed over them. She shouldn't be surprised. If anything, it was a surprise he'd remembered as much as he had.

"No one," she said soothingly, "It wasn't important."

"I forgot again, didn't I?" He tugged at his matted hair in frustration, "I wasn't always like this. I won't always be like this."

"We'll find your brain," she promised him, some part of her asking when that had become a normal sentence to say.

"Yes!" He bounced to his knees beside her, leaning closer until she could smell the faint odor of earth and straw she'd come to associate with him. "It will be different then. _Everything_ will be different."

There was a curious intensity to his voice, and her eyes widened as she wondered what exactly he was promising her. It would be different. Better, she told herself. Much better to have a friend with all of his marbles, instead of one who couldn't remember his own name, much less hers, for more than eight seconds at a time.

He pulled away, sitting down beside her again, this time at a normal distance, and flashed her the nervous, puzzled smile she'd come to view with affection. It wasn't fair to him to be like this, to have been brilliant and to be reduced to this state of perpetual confusion.

But her mind once again filled with the memory of fire and her own terrified cries and for one moment, selfishly, she hoped that part of their quest would fail.


End file.
